Chapter 3 Angelo
Angelo
The man’s cheekbone cracks when my fist hits him at full throttle. Blood sprays sideways, speckling the cuff of my white shirt. I grimace. I should have worn a black one. Blood spatter is a bitch to get out of white cotton.
The man spits out a wad of pink saliva and stares at me with his one functioning eye. I have to hand it to him; he’s bearing up better than I expected. The guy has balls for sure.
He might not end the night with any, but that’s not my problem. If he refuses to talk, I’ll make this long and painful. And if he gives me what I need, then maybe he’ll suffer a bit less.
“I’m losing patience, Sully.”
He laughs and then coughs up some more blood.
“Fuck you.”
I glance down at his flaccid cock and then arch one eyebrow at him. He must read my intention because he flails around like crazy, but it’s no use. Duct tape is virtually impossible to escape from when one is taped to a metal chair bolted to the floor. Plenty have tried. And all have failed.
“Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll cut off your cock and shove it down your throat.”
Sully’s eyes bulge. I’m done playing games, and he knows it. Shit just got real.
“I don’t know who it was!” he shrieked. “I swear on my mother’s life!”
“Your mother is a crack whore.”
Alex passes me some latex gloves. There’s no fucking way I’m touching this stronzo’s dick without being gloved up. Sully watches as I pull them on. In seconds, he’s hyperventilating.
“He was Russian! I don’t know his name!”
I pause. This is new information. “Russian? How do you know this?”
“He had an accent, and he…he took a call from a guy…he called him Mikhail…” Snot and tears stream down Sully’s face. I almost feel sorry for him.
The guy is a complete moron. We paid him to manage the street runners, and he was dumb enough to take a bigger cut.
Even worse, when a new supplier began flooding our territory, he tried to flip sides, stupidly thinking he would make more money with the new guy.
I wouldn’t normally get involved in these issues, but I’m crawling out of my skin this evening. Handling this piece of shit seemed like a good way to burn off the excess rage.
Torture probably isn’t the healthiest anger management technique in the world, but whatever. It works for me.
“What did they offer you?”
Sully screams like a girl when I grab his pathetic little cock and hold the tip of my knife to it.
“He said he’d promote me into a management position,” he sobbed.
Alex snorts with amusement from behind me, and I grin. Jesus. This cazzo is fucking deluded.
Ambition is a good thing. If he’d kept his nose out of the merchandise and avoided spilling his guts to every whore he fucked, he would have scored a promotion within our organization.
Unfortunately, the guy was too busy pumping shit into his veins. I have one rule for my guys on the street: don’t touch the merchandise. Sully broke that rule a million times over, and now he’s paying the price for his stupidity.
“And you believed him?” I have to ask. Curiosity and all.
“Yes!” He blubbers some more and then screams when I stick my blade into his thigh. I am tempted to cut his cock off, but the pathetic little shit would likely bleed out if I did.
“Okay, I’m done here. I’ll let you work on him for a bit,” I tell Alex.
Fina’s coming over, and I need to shower before she arrives. My sister understands the bloody nature of our lifestyle, but she gets pissy when I sit down for dinner still dressed in the remnants of an interrogation. “Let me know if he remembers anything else important.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
I had hoped dealing with Sully would be enough to calm my demons, but darkness lingers on the periphery of my mind.
If only I could ignore the stream of bullshit from my father demanding I find my fucking runaway bride, life would be good.
I’ll find her soon. And when I do, she won’t escape again.
Fina strolls in while I’m texting Kane for an update on his search for my missing wife. As always, my sister looks like a million dollars in her designer suit and heels.
“You look like shit, fratello,” she murmurs in my ear as she kisses my cheek.
“Why thank you, mia cara sorella.” I snort. Fina always tells it how she sees it.
“I’m not joking, Angelo. You really do look like shit. Are you not sleeping?” I read the concern in her eyes and scowl.
“Fina, I’m fine. You need to worry more about yourself than about me. Dad’s talking about marrying you off to one of the Fiorelli brothers again.”
At that, she blanches. “I can’t marry anyone!”
Dammit, I hate seeing her upset. “I know, tesoro, and trust me, it won’t be happening.” The irony of my marriage to Chiara does not escape me, but I shove that thought down. Regret is a waste of my time. I did what I had to do. Until my father is dead, he has the final say in most things.
Matteo’s face is a picture as he stands in the doorway listening to our conversation. The poor fuck can’t hide his panic.
Matteo has been her bodyguard since she was sixteen, and although they are discreet, my sister is in love with him and he with her.
Unfortunately, there is no way in this lifetime or the next that our father will accept Matteo as a husband for Fina. As his only daughter, her true value lies in her role as a bargaining chip.
“Come, let’s forget about family shit for tonight. Dominic has cooked your favorite.” I take her arm, and we walk into the kitchen where Dom’s plating up beef stew with dumplings.
We’ve grown up on Italian food, but my sister, for some strange reason, loves dumplings with a passion she usually only reserves for dark chocolate and Sauvignon Blanc.
“Oh my god, Dominic, you’re an angel!” Fina sinks into a chair at the kitchen table and beams with happiness.
“We have chocolate pudding for dessert too,” I say. She closes her eyes for a moment, then looks at me with suspicion.
“Are you trying to butter me up? Is there some horrific fuck-up I need to deal with?”
My sister handles PR for the family. She loves doing all the social media shit and dealing with the press. Mostly, we try to keep a low profile, but it’s difficult because of the public-facing side of the business.
The Di Rossi Foundation donates millions of dollars each year to charitable projects, and our hotel chain is a global brand. What the public and media don’t know is that we also control all the drug trade along the East Coast.
One part of the business feeds the other.
It hasn’t always been that way, but my father broke the mold. He expanded the family business away from the traditional income streams his father relied on. In the '70s, he started buying up prime real estate and developing hotels, and from there, the foundations of the modern business grew.
We still deal drugs and other illegal shit, but I’m hoping to pivot away from that and focus more on the legitimate holdings.
It’s going to take time, though. Pa is a traditionalist, and until he hands the reins over to me, I answer to him. Which is proving harder to swallow by the day.
“No fuck-ups, Fina. Although Paris Remington was unhappy when she found out I’d fucked her best friend. She may have posted some shit about me online.”
“Seriously? Aren’t you too old for this kind of bullshit by now?”
I shrug, not caring in the slightest what she thinks of my sex life. My sister scowls.
“Tim Remington has a lot of influence, Angelo. He could make it difficult for us.”
“If Tim makes a move, he’ll regret it.” I fork some tender meat and chew. Paris Remington is a fucking bitch. I still don’t know what possessed me to fuck her.
It was unfortunate that Paris walked in on me fucking her friend Michelle a few days later, though. Oops.
“Hmm, well, let’s hope he doesn’t.”
“Fina, if he pisses me off, he’ll disappear and nobody will remember his name.”
“He has too many dubious connections to just disappear without a trace, Angelo.” My sister makes a good point, but it won’t stop me from ending the slimy bastard if he tries crossing me.
The conversation lightens as we finish dinner and move into the sitting room. Matteo disappears to speak with some of the security guys, so I decide to address the elephant in the room.
“You know you need to break it off, right?”
Fina looks up in fake surprise. “Break what off?”
“Come on, Fina, we both know you’re fucking Matteo.”
A bright flush colors her cheeks as she gulps down some more wine. “No idea what you’re talking about, fratello.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, you do. Dad knows, by the way. You’re not as discreet as you think you are. One of his guys saw Matteo leaving your bedroom last week.”
Telling her makes me feel like a complete asshole, but she needs to know. Dad has said nothing to me, but I have a feeling this might speed up his plans to marry her off.
Fina chews her lip anxiously. “Will he hurt Matteo?”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.” I wouldn’t put it past Father to send Matteo away or deliberately put him in danger in the hope some fucker kills him. Plausible deniability and all. To stop that from happening, I plan to have a word and disabuse him of that idea.
Under normal circumstances, Fina would have moved out years ago, but because she’s female and our father is an overprotective asshole, she still lives at home.
Matteo has been taking one hell of a risk sneaking into her bedroom. A risk that has come back to bite him.
It’s a miracle Father hadn’t strung Matteo up already, but knowing him, he’s waiting for the optimal moment. That’s how he operates.
“I need to talk to Matteo. Fuck, I have to warn him!” Fina pushes her wine to one side and jumps up. “If he’s in danger, he has to leave, Angelo. I can’t bear the thought of Dad punishing him for being with me.” Her eyes shine with tears. “I love him, and he loves me. We want to be together, but…”
“Yeah, I know. You can’t.”
“Fuck this life.” She picks up her wine glass and launches it at the fireplace. Wine splashes the decorative flower arrangement while shards of glass sprinkle the rug. “I fucking hate it!”
“Calm down. I’ll speak with Dad, see what he says. I’m sure I can talk him out of doing anything stupid."
My sister wraps her arms around me and hugs me hard. “Thank you, Angelo. You’re my favorite brother.”
Neither of us mentions Luka.
She briefly frowns. Luka continues to be a pain in my ass, but I know Fina adores him. I watch her leave and then pour myself another drink. The minute I lift the glass to my lips, my phone rings.
“Any news?” Kane’s been running down a lead in Texas. Neither of us expected it to come to anything, but the informant is someone he trusts, so he traveled there to check it.
“I found her. She’s unconscious right now, but good luck to you when she comes around. Fucking bitch broke my nose.” I wondered why his voice sounded weird.
“That’s my wife you’re talking about,” I snap, but he just laughs.
“We’ll be back in roughly five hours.”
He ends the call, and I push my glass to one side. Well, well. My evening just got a lot more interesting. The thought of finally bringing my runaway bride home raises a smile.